Sunday, June 23, 2013

The Games of Jones

I play a lot of games to make life brighter. Sometimes these games are conscious choices,
made a long time in advance, like the “This is what I love/this is what I hate”
game. I love songs that have silly
lyrics, just to maintain the rhyme, like, “I really think you’re groovy. Let’s
go out to a movie.” I hate stepping in
something wet when I’m wearing socks.
(Also? I hate wearing socks, in general, and I think I've just realized this might play a big part in that.) Sometimes the games are
last-minute decisions, like, “If this handful of stuff I’m holding is exactly
the right number of said stuff that I need for this thing, then I win! However,
if I have one piece of stuff too many or too few, then I double lose!” There are other unintentional games, such as
my (mostly) unexpected adventures at HEB.
And then, there’s a game I've played my whole life: the game of happy.

The game of happy is closely related to what I love, but on
a much bigger scale and more complex. It
isn't just about my favorite things; it’s about the ideal life in the perfect
world, like having the library from Beauty and the Beast or a giant blanket
fort instead of a bedroom. I've been
adding to the game as long as I can remember.
As a little girl, the happy was pretending that I was really English…or
a hillbilly. I would speak in the accents so much that I couldn't stop, even
when I wanted to, or was being yelled at by my parents when they stopped
thinking it was funny. To be fair, I
also pretended that Mr. and Mrs. Howell were my parents, and they always
thought I was funny.

"Lovey, she cracks me up!"

As I got older, the game got older, too. I started adding details of things I could
put in my life that would make me happy.
I had never really told that many people, because the game is different
for everybody. To win, only I have to be
happy, and it doesn't matter how silly or dumb someone else thinks it is. Some time ago, I was visiting with my doctor,
who was sad that a trip to see a specialist hadn't come about with a perfect
answer or cure that she was hoping for.
She was so concerned with how I was taking it, that I decided maybe the happy would help her, too.

Doc: What would make you happy?

Me: Oh, that’s simple.

Doc: You?
Simple?

Me: Of course!
I have it all planned out.
Someday I’m going to live in England. Up north, probably. I’ll have a whole pack of corgis named for
the Royal Family, and I’ll even get a gimpy one and name him Charles. I’d like to have sheep, and at least two of
them need to be the kind with the black faces.
I’ll name them Al Jolson and Gene Wilder. Oh, and then an old Clydesdale, too. I love them because they have big feet. And, I’ll name him Dover so that I can always
tell him to move his bloomin’ arse.

Doc: O…kay.
Did you tell your dad about this?
What did he think about you moving to England and, uh…the rest?

Me: Oh, he says it would be cool if I could train
the sheep so that instead of bleating “Baaaah,” they go, “Maaaammy.”

Doc: I think I must be missing something here.

Me: Probably a lot of somethings.

Be cool. Shake it, but don't break it.

By now, I have hundreds of details in the game. Some are as innocuous as having a field of
sunflowers, while others are very intricate and would require a lot of
planning, like having my own labyrinth.
I already have it designed with a mirror in the center, because a
labyrinth is supposed to represent a reflection of self and meditating upon the
center of your mind and soul. In my
labyrinth, you would notice anamorphic art that looks completely abstract from
far away. As you twist and turn your way
to the center, the image stays abstract, until you get to the end. Then, with the angle just right, you look
into the mirror and see David Bowie. It
might be un-Christian of me, but I figure that there could be a lot worse than
David Bowie hanging out in the innermost part of my soul.

If you were curious, here's my dad's reaction to the David Bowie thing, after I was able to explain anamorphic art so that he didn't think I had just made it up or that I was talking about those Magic Eye illusion books that none of us could ever actually see.

Dad: Would it be David-now-Bowie or David-iconic red hair-Bowie?

Me: I was thinking David-spandex, codpiece, king of the goblins-Bowie.